For­mer monk stands by con­victed tem­ple killer

First as a monk and then as a lay­man, Mano Lao­ha­vanich has been fight­ing for jus­tice for Johnathan Doody, no mat­ter what he has to sac­ri­fice. Seven­teen years ago Mr Mano, then known as Met­tanando Bhikkhu, was ab­bot of the Dham­makaya In­ter­na­tional So­ci­ety of Cal­i­for­nia, or Wat Dham­makaya Cal­i­for­nia. When Doody was ac­cused of the shock­ing mur­der of nine peo­ple, in­clud­ing six monks, a novice and a nun, at Wat Promku­naram in Phoenix on Aug 10, 1991, Mr Mano was con­vinced the teenager with US cit­i­zen­ship but born in Thai­land was be­ing made a scape­goat by US au­thor­i­ties. ‘‘There were no wit­nesses from the Thai com­mu­nity to tell the court of the cul­tural as­pects of the facts. It was in­con­ceiv­able that a per­son born of Thai par­ents would com­mit such a crime against monks,’’ he said. The as­sem­bly of Thai monks ap­pointed Met­tanando Bhikkhu to look into the case. He be­gan re­search­ing the fam­ily back- ground of Doody, the step­son of an Amer­i­can fa­ther, and looking into the way the US po­lice took le­gal action against him. He found ev­i­dence to sug­gest Doody was the vic­tim of an un­fair in­ves­ti­ga­tion by some po­lice of­fi­cers. He de­cided to make his find­ings pub­lic, writ­ing ar­ti­cles that were pub­lished in both Thai and US news­pa­pers. Peo­ple’s opin­ions were di­vided on the is­sue. He gave tes­ti­mony in the US court as a de­fence wit­ness and re­turned to Thai­land to seek ad­di­tional help. Se­nior monks in Thai­land re­fused to help, so he met then-prime min­is­ter Chuan Leek­pai. Mr Mano’s ef­forts to help Doody were head­lined in the Thai me­dia and prompted the gov­ern­ment to set up a com­mit­tee to look into the mat­ter. Mr Mano said it was a race against time, be­cause Doody could be fac­ing a death sen­tence. Doody’s sup­port­ers fi­nally asked Alan Der­showitz, a pro­fes­sor of law at Har­vard Uni­ver­sity, to lead the de­fence. The money to hire such a fa­mous le­gal con­sul­tant was raised by four tem­ples in Thai­land, which drew crit­i­cism from some se­nior monks. They said the money could be bet­ter spent on char­ity ac­tiv­i­ties for the needy at tem­ples in re­mote ar­eas of Thai­land. ‘‘Every­one viewed me as a fool for ex­ceed­ing my au­thor­ity and de­fy­ing my teach­ers’ warn­ings,’’ said Mr Mano. ‘‘I did the right thing, but I faced the pain,’’ he said. His ef­forts were costly. Many Thai peo­ple in Ari­zona were an­gry with him, ac­cus­ing him of caus­ing a divi­sion in the Thai com­mu­nity. He was also black­listed by se­nior monks in Thai­land. Af­ter leav­ing the Dham­makaya In­ter­na­tional So­ci­ety of Cal­i­for­nia, Met­tanando Bhikkhu stayed in sev­eral tem­ples in Bangkok but fi­nally left the monk­hood, which had been his life for 25 years. He ran in the gen­eral elec­tion last year un­der the Chart Thai ban­ner but failed to win a seat. Now aged 52, he works as a spir­i­tual con­sul­tant — but he still fol­lows the Doody case.

Mano: Be­lieves Doody a scape­goat